April 23, 2012

Jammie Price, a tenured professor of sociology at Appalachian State University, was suspended last month after showing a documentary about pornography in her introductory sociology class. She’s fighting the charges, saying the university is attempting to punish her for exercising her right to free speech in the classroom....

Price said the film, which she checked out from the university library, was graphic at times but academically relevant to that week’s topic of gender and sexuality. A Wheelock College professor who helped make the movie said it was “ludicrous” to discipline an instructor for showing the documentary, noting that interviews with gender studies scholars figure prominently in the film, which is critical of the porn industry but also includes brief explicit scenes of porn.

It was an anti-porn documentary. But the students were not warned that these sequences were part of the movie. And there were other charges against Price. According to the disciplinary letter, she "'made disparaging, inaccurate remarks about student athletes,' strayed from her syllabus, forced her political views on students, said she didn’t like working at the university and criticized the college for having an old white coal miner as its mascot."

Price, a tenured full professor, said she had originally planned a lecture for that day but decided to show the film instead after a student complained earlier in the week that Price was hostile toward athletes. That allegation, which was included in Price’s disciplinary letter, centered on a classroom discussion about sexual assault accusations leveled against Appalachian State athletes and a resulting campus protest....

Price said she feared the athlete who complained would think her lecture on gender and sexuality was a form of retaliation, so instead she decided to screen the film.

It sounds as though the film was experienced by the students as a form of retaliation for the students' resisting what they felt was political indoctrination. But so what? Are students entitled to feel comfortable?

But it's usually the left side of the faculty that pushes for university rules and policies that protect the students from free expression that makes them feel bad. It's an interesting turnabout when a faculty member is suddenly confronting the students with shocking, sexually demeaning images. What happens to all the usual worries about sexual harassment then? And what if the professor really does feel hostile to the students, hostile to them because of their political viewpoint — specifically on the subject of the sexual subordination of women?

Gail Dines, a professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College, was a senior consultant for “The Price of Pleasure” and was interviewed in the film...

While she said professors should warn students about the content of the film and tell them they can leave without any repercussions (something Price didn’t do), she can’t understand why Appalachian State is taking action against Price. “This is what education is,” Dines said. “You expose them to the reality of the world they live in and you use that exposure to develop a critical scholarly discussion in class, which is exactly what she did.”...

“Sometimes students are going to be uncomfortable,” Price said. “The material they learn isn’t always going to be rosy. They talk about racism, they talk about sexism. Nowhere does it say we’re supposed to make them feel good all the time. Talking about pornography is one of those examples.”

Without warning, the next slide is a highly detailed picture of a delicate fetus sucking its thumb, with a quick click forward to the most gruesome dead-fetus photo the professor could find on the internet. The lecture continues, and the professor starts calling on students, requiring them to participate in Socratic dialogue — which counts for part of their grade. As individual students are speaking, trying to articulate the rationale in the abortion rights cases, the professor from time to time clicks back to a grisly or charming fetus photos.

The students go to the dean and complain. Questioned, the professor says: Students might like to feel comfortable, but this subject isn't rosy. Nowhere does it say we’re supposed to make them feel good all the time. Talking about abortion is one of those examples.

This: "She’s fighting the charges, saying the university is attempting to punish her for exercising her right to free speech in the classroom...."

What right to free speech in the classroom? The First Amendment guarantees that the government cannot restrict your speech. It does not restrict employers from controlling what's said by their employees within their facilities.

interviews with gender studies scholars figure prominently... made disparaging, inaccurate remarks about student athletes... forced her political views on students... criticized the college for having an old white coal miner as its mascot.

Hard to be outraged. Let her twist in the wind.

Let's flip the politics and try this hypothetical

A conservative doing this with abortion would have been burned at the stake.

Snickers and sideways glances not withstanding, why is porn demeaning? Is it to be attacked by using terms like "demeaning" because it threatens the complete monopoly the fairer sex has on access to the vajayjay?

What right to free speech in the classroom? The First Amendment guarantees that the government cannot restrict your speech. It does not restrict employers from controlling what's said by their employees within their facilities.

After the postmodern revolution, the professors were surprised to find their own weapons used against them, their history now repeated as farce.

I would normally defend a professor's ability to have discussions about disagreeable things, but will not, much as the left has refused to allow hiring anyone not also a leftist, and has long denied this same latitude for anyone but themselves.

So the professor puts together the next day's Power Point slide show... with a quick click forward to the most gruesome dead-fetus photo the professor could find on the internet. The lecture continues, and the professor starts calling on students... As individual students are speaking, trying to articulate the rationale in the abortion rights cases, the professor from time to time clicks back to a grisly or charming fetus photos.

So long as the course description described (in general terms) what the course was actually about, it seems like fair game to me. On the other hand, I've seen arguments from Stanford legal counsel that free speech form students should be stifled for political correctness.

Also, from my experience, leftists have a difficult time compartmentalizing. As an instance, one of my history exams was marked down when I said "Hitler was a military genius." For instance, he took out the Maginot line by thinking out of the box. I was told "But he killed so many Jews!" Argue against that. I was marked down.

Free speech in the classroom because it's a State school? The employee is required to perform the work for which he/she was hired. A secretary can't spend the day gabbing and then decry her termination as a violation of her "free speech" rights just because her employer is the government. A professor is hired to teach a particular subject in an appropriate, professional manner. Failure to do so is not protected under "free speech" or any other clause. As for the porn/abortion comparison, do prochoicers really get upset about images of fetuses, dead or alive? Don't they always just say, "that's no more or less icky than footage of surgery from TV documentaries"? Isn't the complaint about showing those images at protests the fact that they can be disturbing to children?

When I was in graduate school, a guest lecturer once showed a Czech gay porn movie featuring young men having sex on a jungle-gym in the middle of a forest, followed by Douglas Sirk's "Imitation Of Life". I don't recall the ensuing seminar discussion, except that the lecturer remarked that Lana Turner's first name is "anal" spelled backwards.

People were embarrassed and shocked (about the gay porn, not the Sirk), and the chair of the department left early, but no one complained and no one was suspended, at least that I recall.

First, there's all kinds of uncomfortable - it's one thing for a prof to intellectually challenge students, it's quite another to hold specific ones up for ridicule.

Second, this sounds like a junior or senior year subject, not something for introductory Soc (which I barely remember from sophomore year) and, yes, she should have warned people about the movie.

Third, sounds like Jammie (she's got problems with athletes with a name like that?) needs to get over herself. She sounds like she's a poster child for everything wrong with a lot of Liberal Arts profs today and has been since I was in undergrad school.

I should revise my comment; upon reflection, I'll wager that most the students in that class didn't give a shit. It was a small, perhaps tiny minority, who are offended at everything. The dean Now Must Do Something; the solution can't possibly be to tell the immature alarmist to fuck off and grow up.

So, once again, regardless of the merits of the professor, the whiners again win the day.

Yes, but they didn't let that stop them from instituting a speech code.

Wow, suddenly speech codes are okay? As Althouse says; be consistent. Don't whine about how conservatives are persecuted using unconstitutional speech codes as justification and then turn around and endorse them when it's speech you don't like.

One cannot make a porno movie starring Madame Albright. One cannot fashion a gourmet meal out of dog food. If porn is defined as material that arouses one's prurient interest in sex, one cannot show pornography in a sociology class. The aims and purposes of these activities are just too contradictory. The purpose of modern sociological studies is to make the penis wither and die. I'm sure that this documentary was the antithesis of pornography. Whatever indiscretion the professor committed, it was not showing pornography.....To be consistent with your example, it would be like an anti abortion professor showing the The Bad Seed or Mommy Dearest to illustrate the evils of abortion.

Yes, but they didn't let that stop them from instituting a speech code.

Wow, suddenly speech codes are okay?

I don't think that was his point. Someone asked what free speech rights exist in a classroom, to which Freder said it was a public university in an attempt, I suppose, to say that 1st Amendment protections applied. The answer, to which you replied, was addressed to Freder and made the point that if a teacher or student has 1st Amendment protections in a public university's classroom, how can a public university arbitrarily set up a speech code?

FIRE's efforts in this realm have been stunning, to say the least. A perfect example of using light to disinfect.

The purpose of modern sociological studies is to make the penis wither and die.

If you're saying that the assault by moderns (read leftists) on traditional social arrangements under the guise of sociological studies is an assault on joy and therefore an assault on the stiff prick, I'm with you. But maybe you're saying something different?

Of course there is. You can get a PhD in it, but you'll owe $87,000 in student loans and you won't be able to get a job, but it will give you an excuse to join the Occupation and hold up a sign bemoaning your fate.

"I'll wager that most the students in that class didn't give a shit. It was a small, perhaps tiny minority, who are offended at everything. The dean Now Must Do Something; the solution can't possibly be to tell the immature alarmist to fuck off and grow up.So, once again, regardless of the merits of the professor, the whiners again win the day."

yep- This. She's got good reviews on rate your professor, for whatever that is worth. But she was criticizing the administration. That is far more dangerous then showing the film in class and it is most likely why she was suspended.

Profs should warn students about shocking images. I'd go further --Profs shouldn't show shocking images for career reasons. Too dangerous. Administrations feel they must do something, and legislators sometimes get involved.

North America is a culture of whiners. Did you hear of the academic who was suspended for screening Paris Is Burning? Or the gay faculty who was targeted by state legislators in Atlanta?

The problem with your analogy and discussion, Althouse, is that you are completely missing the moral aspect of the story- at least from the perspective of some of those students.

The act of watching pornography is not one of mere uncomfortableness. Many religious (and no doubt some non-religious people as well) believe that the act of watching the video is morally wrong. Yes, you can argue that the students who believe this can shut their eyes, but that is not a very good solution, is it?

A conservative doing this with abortion would have been burned at the stake.

I think there's a tremendous amount of repression over abortion. But I don't know if you can blame liberals for this repression, if you don't have pro-lifers risking their careers for the pro-life cause.

Marxists risked their careers all the time! If you want free speech for your cause, fight. You're going to have suffer, too, probably.

You have to commit to free speech.

Also, you need to recognize that you are going to have people who have had abortions sitting in your classroom. I think one of the reasons we repress is a sensitivity to people who have already had abortions, and feel bad about it.

All those Marxists from the free speech cases in the 1950's didn't have to worry about upset women fleeing their classrooms in tears.

But the problem with that is that a whole new generation of unsuspecting women grows up thinking that abortion is no big deal. Our failure to talk about it, to warn people, is a disgrace.

Look, people need freedom of speech. And room to make mistakes. That dean is a coward and I don't have much respect for him, at least on those facts.

Every day the class met, before it started, one of the students (possibly an athlete, but any student this teacher disapproves of would do) stands up and says, "This class is a waste of my time. My brain gets smaller when ever I'm in this class. It's a scam to get my money and taxpayer support for utterly unemployable and worthless professors. Thank you. "

The act of watching pornography is not one of mere uncomfortableness. Many religious (and no doubt some non-religious people as well) believe that the act of watching the video is morally wrong.

I took Psychology of Sex/Sexual Deviation as an undergraduate. We saw academic porn all the time. Believe me, there's no lust. What kind of porn do you think they have in the school library?

In any event, censoring porn does not make sex go away. We've had sex (and infanticide, and rape) a lot longer than we've had porn. Better to talk about these things freely and not repress. Open and free discussion, that's the ticket.

Comfort (with strength) is a precondition of learning. So is relaxation. A teacher who wants/allows a student to be uncomfortable in a pedagogical context, or, a student who wants/allows a teacher to be, attacks that context. Learning and teaching are not warfare. They are gardening.

Furthermore, a student paying for an education reverses the economics and therefore the authority of the pedagogical enterprise. The teacher should pay all costs of a student's education. This rights the economics and therefore the vector of authority in that enterprise.

Interesting, either she's not very bright or Inside Hihger Ed didn't do it's homework very well. Yosef the ASU Mountaineer has always been a hillbilly. There is no coal mined in that part of the Blue Ridge, so a coal miner would make little sense.

Maybe she's in trouble because most of Appalachian State's student-athletes are black, and so she's racist.Or maybe, because of her propensity to go off syllabus and push her political agenda, she's simply unprofessional. Frankly, I'd fire her for that alone.

Dante said, “one of my history exams was marked down when I said "Hitler was a military genius. For instance, he took out the Maginot line by thinking out of the box. I was told "But he killed so many Jews!"

Well, obviously you would have done better to point out that Hitler supported abortion rights. Thus leading to the not-entirely-logical syllogism:

In any case, while your history exam grader was illogical, few have considered Hitler a military genius. “Military bungler” is a more common assessment, especially when it came to throwing away troops’ lives with orders forbidding retreat under any circumstances (especially during the campaign against the USSR).

As for going around the Maginot line, this is just what many (including at least a few French) expected. After all, Germany had attacked France through Belgium in World War I, so the idea that they just might do so again shouldn’t have been a great surprise.

Even if one admitted that it was possible to go around the Maginot Line (and after looking at a map, who could deny it?) it would still have had military value just because it would force an invader to go around it.

What was a surprise is that Germany attacked through the Ardennes forest. Many apparently thought that all but impossible- until it was done, of course.

Although you might have confused your grader even more (but reduced your grade) if you’d noted that Hitler was said to be kind to dogs, and children seemed to like him (when he wasn’t murdering them, of course).

Please, ripic and like-minded know-nothing-know-it-all babblers upthread, do elighten us as to why there is no such thing. Please, august expert that you are on what is and is not scholarship, do fucking tell.

Ugh! I detest feminism so much, especially the sex-is-rape crowd, with their pornography rants.

You know, if you are going to teach sex, really teach it, you ought to bring in a hooker for a discussion. Then you would bring in a nun for a discussion. You would bring in a baby. Make the class watch a breast-feeding.

Maybe show them some veneral diseases. Here's what untreated syphillis looks like.

Field trip to the abortion clinic. Yay!

You'd show them gay porn, transvestites, S&M. You'd have to be open to it all. And if you can't teach that, if all you know is "sex is rape," then you shouldn't really teach it.

What was a surprise is that Germany attacked through the Ardennes forest. Many apparently thought that all but impossible- until it was done, of course.

Uh no. When Churchill visited and inspected the Maginot Line, he noted that gap in the Ardennes and inquired about it. The French told him that the gap was deliberate, as a way to "channel" the German forces into a kill zone.

The French were not surpised by the German attack, they were surprised by the quickness of it.

The sad thing is that professors at small mountain colleges used to be proud that they were teaching dirt poor Appalachian people who worked hard to get to college.

This woman apparently despises her job, her school, her students' families, her students' beliefs and ideals, and her students. But since she chose to teach "gender studies", we know she already despised half of the human race.